A Stack of Books
by On either side the river lie
Summary: A tiny one-shot prompted by the memory of Matthew reading to a very pregnant Mary, and how that carries on through time.


_Hello my DA darlings. This one-shot has been sitting and gathering dust for months, and I recently was bombarded with a series of Matthew and Mary gifs on Tumblr, one specifically that showed Matthew in bed reading to a very pregnant Mary, in the Series 3 Christmas Special, that originally prompted this tiny piece of writing. (and a bevy of FEELS). So I offer a paragraph through time, where Mary moves on, with whom we are yet to find out, so he is who you make him, and where words wander through decades tying people together to nestle like the leaves of a book._

* * *

They sat on the side table, a crooked pile in the nursery, more than a dozen of various thickness's and colours. Some were newer, others thumbed with wear and age. All had been read aloud.

He noticed them the first time he came to the nursery, Master Crawley so small that the crib overwhelmed the bundle of blankets. He noticed them because they were not books for babes, or for infants, were not picture books or fables. The noticing didn't mean much though, a passing thought that was swept away with emotion that this infant had already lost so much.

The second time he noticed, he had come in search of Branson and had eventually tracked him down to the upstairs nursery, playing with the children after their nap. All giggles and crashing blocks with tendrils of sound escaping through the cracked door and down the hallway. The frivolity of the light-filled room contrasted to the angles and corners of the stack. Dark covers jutting privilege on the table. He inquisitively sought out the titles and banked them to memory.

Master Crawley had crawled to him on that day and pulled himself up on his leg reaching skyward. Branson had quirked an eyebrow at the youngster and they had all laughed to hear the little one's delight at being picked up and tentatively held at such height.

It was in the third year, when Sybbie chased Master Crawley around their nursery one very wet day that in his rushing had tripped on some trains and bumped the side table. The denouncement of time carved slowly as the stack of books arched through the air towards the inevitable thud onto the floor. The lashing that Lady Mary gave cut ribbons and reduced the children to tears as she awkwardly moved to collect them and replace them in the exact order and orientation that they should always be found. Her fingers whispering caresses over the imprinting of letters and she stroked the covers reverently. It was the touch of a long lost lover.

In the autumn of another year, with storms rife and times changing, the discovery of a fallen prominent branch of the cypress tree just outside the library brought a flurry of activity from ground-staff. The youngest Crawley scrambled with his tall dark haired companion finding the collapsed limb just shy of his Mama's bench, the wood moist and smelling fresh of forest adventures and wild windy storms. The tall friend of Lady Mary lifted him atop the limb to run along its straight trunk, balancing with his arms held wide. There was a watchful tenderness and care as George climbed amongst its branches, his friend, his Mama's friend, waiting patiently for the game and thrill to fade of fun. Never once indicating that time, in this moment need be rushed or ignored.

So it was the next day early, when the two men, one tall and dark, one fair and but still a wee one, headed out across the grass from the front doors, cart and tools in hand, with the Master perched on tall shoulders.

There they spent the day sawing and cutting until just the right piece had been selected, returning just before dinner, sweaty and covered in sawdust and full of quiet that hard work reaps.

Lady Mary had stood watching, at first half hidden by the vast drapes of the library windows, later framed and centred. Silent on the surface. And yet still within. She wondered and waited. But knew it not right to question or seek. The Cypress still stood, jaggedly raw in its violent carving, and yet it bore her memories of old still, and as she watched, it unfurled news ones yet.

The piece of wood did not reappear until deep into the winter. Thin and long and so smooth and shiny it was like glass. The blacksmith had been requested to make two unobtrusive brackets befitting, and the man who rarely left Lady Mary's side had installed it himself. Loving hands screwed it to the wall opposite the fireplace, furthest from the window as to not get much light, in the nursery, above Master Crawley's bed.

When they tucked the young Crawley into bed, all snug with teddy, a tin frog and a newly whittled slingshot that he promised not to use inside, his mother glanced above and noticed.

There had been no mention of its creation, or placement. No finger pointing to its arrival, and more astutely no direction for its use.

Her eyes held more than could be spoken, as Lady Mary acknowledged his giving and silently praised his effort. While her body stood paused at the edge of her son's bed, her mind grasped at the gift that he gave. She knew that he respected the significance of the cypress and her bench and she thanked him for the tribute. She understood the gesture he offered for both herself and her son, and she thanked him for not diminishing her past or her memories. Her eyes held all that she could not utter, and as he left the room, he understood everything in them. The slightest brush of her hand just above his wrist, her fingers making connection under his rolled sleeve, showed where they now were in each other's lives.

The shelf remained empty until the dark of night after the Servant's Ball, when the house had gone to bed and Lady Mary checked on her son. The occasion had seemed significant, and the books were moved to their new place.

If Master Crawley noticed when he woke, he failed to let on, proving he had more of his mother in him than others had hoped, or wondered.

The exclamation of surprise came from Anna instead, as she went to get him, and noticed that the books stood in exact order that they had for the last handful of years. The shelf in its simplicity showcased the volumes perched, with only enough room for two ornate bookends that looked familiarly from Lady Mary's room.

On the occasion of Master Crawley turning eight he had politely approached his mother in the large Library, a specific book in hand and asked in his best grow up voice, that now he was reading _his_ books, would she very much mind if he asked his other father when he got stuck on certain words for help?

She had looked at him then, with sadness at what he had never known, and understanding that he needed now what was here for him. And there was pride of the man he would become and how she knew what his _real_ father would have felt.

When the Crawley heir finally moved out of the nursery, to thin the crowding and seek a much sought after privacy of his own room, the shelf and the books were transplanted identically to his suite.

So it wasn't until he lost the Master and gained the Earl that the books were reverently transported down to the main Library, where they were given their own shelf behind a glassed door and Barrow made sure it was understood that they were not for general consumption.

Quiet nights, when others were deep into the cushioning of soft sleep, the Earl would regularly pull one out, to sit in a space where he knew he was not alone, to read in reflection and comfort and for connection.

He realised somewhere over the years, for he could not pinpoint a specific moment of awareness, that each September one by one, the books sealed into the cluster of time encapsulated, would disappear briefly during the night to be read ensconced in a four poster bed. George understood. There was one only, that allowed themselves to caress the pages of that stack of books.

The man that shared her bed now, also understood this facet of his true Mary, as she devoured them without pause or interruption. He respected that she needed this moment of memory like pressed pictures between the pages, and granted her the space of reflection that also allowed her to live within their current reality. He had no need of jealousy or disrespected what they represented, as he was grateful that they brought peace and cherished with grace their lives that could have been so completely different.

There was a routine to September nights once they retired, in drastic contrast to the rest of the year. He would always read next to her, propped up in bed, as long as she needed. He often found mild distractions, whether it be fiction, or poetry or accounts from the estate. And when she gently closed the cover, a breath silently let out as if being held and turned to put out the light, he too would settle.

He still remembered the awkward first couple of times, lying ramrod straight and wondering if they would be divided by the pages of the book. But he learnt quickly and she showed him repeatedly overtime that when the light went out on nights in September, she would gently roll as far as it took to reach him and entwine their bodies within the confines their four posts.

* * *

Somewhere through time, as grey hairs streaked dark, and most of the staff where newer rather than old, and fashion had raised hems, cinched waists and voluminous skirts, when lipstick was bright red and another generation bore scars, the Earl of Grantham, George to only some, pulled a book to take to an early bed.

"I might read to her a little." His comment quiet and embraced within the history of the Library, as the sounds of the crackling fire felt like shards of both memory and trepidation ripping through Lady Mary's soul. Her eyes followed her eldest son as he gently left to climb the stairs to his expecting wife, and she wondered at both the joy and sadness in his gait.

"I might take to driving George around myself for a while." It came as a caress of one who, even after all the years, knew the power of emotions held by a stack of books.

* * *

_Fin_


End file.
